FRC Condemns Anti-Life, Anti-Family Spending Spree Dressed up as a Covid Relief Package

WASHINGTON, March 11, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- As President Biden today signed the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (H.R. 1319), Family Research Council criticized the $1.9 trillion spending package. Without a single Republican vote, Democrats pushed through a bill that used the Covid-19 health crisis as a cover to promote policies harmful to human life and the family.

Family Research Council also released a new resource enumerating the abortion-related problems with the bill. Among other things, the bill would:

• Allocate over $450 billion with no Hyde amendment protections. All four previous Covid-19 relief bills passed during the Trump administration were bi-partisan and contained Hyde amendment protections, which prevented the funds from subsidizing elective abortions.
• Allocate over $700 million in global health funding with no Helms amendment protections, which prohibits taxpayer funding of abortions abroad. It also allocates $10 billion in foreign affairs funding that can be used to lobby for abortion overseas.
• Provide $350 billion to bail out state and local governments, without any pro-life protections. The vast majority of this funding would go to states with large deficits and liberal abortion laws like California, Illinois, and New York, which have chosen to directly fund abortions and subsidize Planned Parenthood instead of meeting their state's pandemic-related expenses.
• Expand subsidies for health plans on the Obamacare exchange that cover elective abortions. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates this will amount to $45 billion in tax subsidies.

FRC President Tony Perkins said:

"This is government irresponsibility at its worst.  Calling this a rescue act is a convenient cover for a Democrat bail out of mismanaged Blue states and a payoff of their political base.  It massively funds abortion, liberal teachers' unions, blue states, the arts, and transportation kickbacks for districts like Nancy Pelosi's and Chuck Schumer's.

"President Biden ignored his promise to meet Republican lawmakers halfway by ramming through the first coronavirus bill without bipartisan support. President Biden is so little concerned with Covid that he appointed an abortion activist with no public health experience to head the Department of Health and Human Services, but he's not above using virus scare tactics to ram through unrelated spending that will saddle the nation with another $1.9 trillion (with a T) in debt," concluded Perkins.

Connor Semelsberger, Director of Federal Affairs for Life and Human Dignity at Family Research Council, and who produced our resource, added:

"At a time when the country is working to recover from the negative health and economic impacts of Covid-19, the pro-abortion majority in Congress has decided to cut out pro-life members from the legislative process. Instead of working to gain large bipartisan support for Covid relief legislation, which was possible just a few short months ago, Democrats are seeking to pass the largest expansion of taxpayer funding of abortion since Obamacare in 2010," concluded Semelsberger.

SOURCE Family Research Council